It’s Trump v Biden again. Why were there no better options for voters?

Nah, the candidates we have running in all likelihood are not the best options we could have, especially at the top levels. And not just in this election cycle either, I would say that the same is true of nearly every election cycle.

We have better candidates that could run, though of course the challenge in any democracy is in that not everyone will agree with what is better or best, but this is to be expected, the goal therein should be to have a process in which we, being of varying opinions, can come to a consensus of what is best. The problem however, is that under our current system of picking leaders, voters are actually disincentivized from picking who they personally believe to be the best candidates due to things like spoiler effects and tactical voting, issues inherent under Plurality Voting systems. And those issues by extension also make those better candidates less likely to run in the first place, all of which artificially limits our choices as voters and hinders our ability to effectively come to any true consensus on who the best candidates are.

In my opinion, the way to fix this is, at all levels of government, for us to start swapping out Plurality Voting systems in order to set up Ranked Voting systems which allow for more voter expression in their place. The Plurality methods are decent enough quick-and-dirty methods for establishing the general direction voters want to go in on issues with clear-cut lines and broad levels of agreement, but for a lot of things and especially for the more nuanced subjects, our Plurality system just isn't going to cut it when it comes to voter satisfaction, as I'm sure pretty much every American is already keenly aware of at this point.

-Meta

 

Given a popular third party candidacy on the national level, I'd say that Ranked Voting would actually make it significantly less likely that none of those candidates would be able to reach 270. Because like FreshAir already mentioned, a losing candidate's votes would be transferred to another candidate. If we're talking electors ranking things, then, in theory, a winning candidate could actually even end up receiving all 538 electoral votes even in a 50-50 split country like we have today, assuming every candidate was ranked. Of course, if not every candidate is ranked on every ballot, a contingent election is still a possibility, but no more so (and actually still a lot less so) than it would be under our current system. Because it would only take a few electoral votes (not all, probably not even half) from a losing third party to bump one of the other candidates up to or above 270. It'd be in the hands of voters to prevent contingency by simply ranking alternative options.

To The Mello Guy's point though, if we assume that popular third party candidates would be more likely to want to run under a Ranked system, then at least in that sense you could say that it would make it more likely for a contingent election to occur simply due to their presence in comparison to a Plurality vote in which they might be dissuaded from running for fear of being a spoiler candidate. Though, the idea here I think, is that we ought to want those popular third party candidates to want to run, so sticking with a system because it indirectly excludes them probably isn't the best idea. But Mello Guy, in your last post there, you make mention of the challenge of combining a Ranked Voting system with the National level Electoral College, and maybe this is what you were trying to get at before. It's a valid concern imo. Because this really all depends on how things would be set up at that level, and there is certainly a wrong way for things to be set up...

When it comes to establishing a Ranked Voting system at the National level alongside the Electoral College, I believe there are basically 6 different ways of dealing with that, with 3 of those methods being superior to the other 3. (see next post)

-Meta

 

So here are what I think the options are when it comes to addressing how Ranked Voting would interact with the Electoral College...
Some would require broad agreement between the states, and some would allow for states to shift over one-by-one:

IR=Instant Runoff, RP=Rank Pairs (or equivalent)
Legend (for level of issue or challenge posed by the option):

Significant issue or challenge
Moderate issue or challenge
Minimal issue or challenge​

1. Allowing voters only to rank (but not electors):

Voters of each state submit ranked ballots. Each state picks electors based on the IR or RP winner of that state. Sort of defeats the purpose of ranking, since electors would still be using Plurality, which essentially means that state level spoilers can occur.
a) allows for voters to specify their order of preference for each candidate
b) high risk of spoiler candidates
c) shift can be made on a state-by-state basis
​

2. Allowing voters only to rank (but not electors):

Voters of each state submit ranked ballots. A nation-wide IR or RP winner is determined based on all submitted ballots. States agree to pick electors based on that winner. This gets rid of spoilers, but does require broad cooperation from the states in order to determine a nation-wide IR/RP winner.
a) allows for voters to specify their order of preference for each candidate
b) risk of spoiler candidate is minimized
c) requires buy in from a large number of states, or IR/RP limited to participating states
​

3. Allowing electors only to rank (but not voters):

Voters of each state submit Plurality ballots. Each state picks electors based on the state's or districts' plurality winner, but they can then vote via a ranked system. They'd be expected to rank their state's plurality winner at the top, but could determine similar candidates to put in the number 2, 3, 4 spots, etc. Upshot of this is that it doesn't require any change to the ballot format for voters.
a) does not allow voters to specify their order of preference
b) moderate risk of spoiler candidates
c) requires federal level process change only
​

4. Allowing voters and electors to rank:

Voters of each state submit ranked ballots. Statewide or district-wide rankings are determined. Each state picks electors who then participate in their own ranked vote and are expected to rank according to their state or district's statewide or district-wide ranking.
a) allows for voters to specify their order of preference for each candidate
b) risk of spoiler candidate is minimized
c) requires federal level process change and state shift which can be made on a state-by-state basis
​

And then of course, we also have these two options, which I'll include for completeness:

5. Get rid of or significantly alter the Electoral College to mandate ranking system nation-wide:

Given enough support, this would actually be the cleanest method, removing superfluous bits of unnecessary bureaucratic process.
But obviously getting the required amount of support would be quite the heavy lift, to put it lightly.
a) allows for voters to specify their order of preference for each candidate
b) risk of spoiler candidate is minimized
c) requires a constitutional amendment
​

6. Keep things the way they are (neither voters nor electors can rank):

Well...this is just what we have now. Obviously, it'd be the easiest to implement (since we don't have to do anything),
but its also the option which leaves us with the most unresolved issues.
a) does not allow voters to specify their order of preference
b) high risk of spoiler candidates
c) requires no change

​

In my opinion, options 2, 3, and 4 would be the main ones to consider, with 2 and 4 being the ideal choices, and 3 being something which could be used to more gradually get to 4. I included 1, 5, and 6 just to be thourough, but imo these are less ideal to pursue from where we are today either due to ineffectiveness or the amount of challenge there'd be in getting the required support. Those are my views anyway, but what are your thoughts on those options??

http://politicalforum.com/index.php...ion-in-politics.529608/page-6#post-1068933378

-Meta

 

I actually feel like one of the main reasons, perhaps THE main reason, for why campaigns tend to be so negative towards other candidates as opposed to selling up the positives of a candidate or focusing on how they would handle the issues is because of the lack of serious competition in general elections. When those races come down to just two people having a shot, then it often becomes simply easier to just tear down the other guy rather than explain or build up one's own views on things. I also think that this is why a lot of voters don't bother familiarizing themselves with the more nuanced aspects of issues or with other candidates beyond the main two. When the election system is set up such that voting for moderate ideas likely means increasing the chances of your least favored options winning, then why waste time and energy like that considering those alternative views and candidates?

Or in other words, we've got an overly simplistic Plurality election system. We shouldn't be too surprised that it results in voters then interacting with the election process in simplistic ways that lead to simplistic outcomes. If we were to allow for fuller voter expression by switching to more Ranked methods of voting, we'd probably still have a number of "lazy" voters, but I believe we'd start to see a lot more voters suddenly become interested in digging deeper into the issues, more voters considering a wider spectrum of candidates, and I think that candidates themselves would be forced more to elevate themselves and what they'd be bringing to the table, since smearing someone else wouldn't be as effective at making you the winner when there's a larger pool of choices.

And sure, not every voter would rank things even when given the option, and that's fine in my opinion, because it would then be the voters who were willing to educate themselves on the options and understand the candidates to the point at which they could and would rank them who would then become the deciding factor at least at the margins. Might not exactly help with the whole 'getting a candidate's name out there' thing or network bias, but you know... one issue at a time and such...

-Meta